


The Oxford Suite

by stardust_made



Series: The Oxford Suite [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Love, M/M, Sibling Incest, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:04:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mycroft glides his knuckles and fingers all over the arch of Sherlock’s foot and Sherlock shuffles lower, pushes his foot against Mycroft’s touch. Mycroft increases the pressure and observes his brother’s mouth slacking, as his eyelids begin to droop in earnest." Mycroft visits Sherlock in Oxford to find that he is urgently needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Oxford Suite

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows directly from the end of ["In the Cupboard of My Heart"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/372081). Many thanks to my wonderful beta [](http://disastrolabe.livejournal.com/profile)[**disastrolabe**](http://disastrolabe.livejournal.com/). Thanks to the lovely [](http://tweedisgood.livejournal.com/profile)[**tweedisgood**](http://tweedisgood.livejournal.com/) for her advice on Oxford technicalities.
> 
> Original entry [over here](http://stardust-made.livejournal.com/60504.html) at my Livejournal, in case you feel like dropping me a line.:)

  
Not once during his years at Oxford did Mycroft feel in his stomach such a curdling coil of anticipation like the one he feels now, as the car approaches the town. Oxford is barely the tops of taller buildings sketched against the sky in the distance, yet it’s enough to make Mycroft lean forward eagerly. He searches himself in vain for some intricacy of thought to tie around his buoyant soul like a rope. His habitual mental complexity is needed to remind him who he is.  
  
He discovers nothing but plain happiness, ensconced in the imminent fulfilment of a single wish. So Mycroft travels on, a stranger to himself.  
  
***  
  
The room is empty but unlocked—Sherlock has nipped out only for a few minutes, then. Mycroft can wait a few more minutes. It’s been four months and three days since he last saw Sherlock at Christmas. After such a wait Mycroft can even treasure a few minutes. Delaying gratification has always been something _very_ hard for him to understand, at least so far as personal and not political matters are concerned. While Mycroft can wait out a diplomatic crisis with the patience of a cat holding a very long eye on the canary, waiting to put a toffee in his mouth once the toffee is in sight is often a grand challenge.  
  
Yet now, waiting to see his brother, Mycroft can sense the appeal. It’s like putting a sweet crumb on the pad of your finger, then adding another, then another, then just one more, before at last you bring the finger to your tongue.  
  
Ten minutes pass and Sherlock hasn’t returned. Within the first four Mycroft deduces pretty much everything about his brother’s life and none of it makes the following six minutes enjoyable. The sound of approaching feet makes Mycroft brace himself mentally, but no amount of preparation would ever be enough to make one feel fine about seeing the misery of somebody one loves.  
  
Sherlock walks in, so deep in thought that for a couple of seconds he just looks at Mycroft, evidently unable to process the sight of him in his room. It’s a necessary break—Mycroft needs the time to recover. He was right. With all that he already knew, expected, it was still a shock to see his brother the way he looks: incredibly thin, hair greasy, nostrils red and chapped, dark circles encroaching on his eyes. Mycroft’s heart lurches forward, but his mind pulls the reins. He puts his entire focus on the cup in Sherlock’s hand, before his eyes jump away in the irrational fear they might make the cup explode.  
  
Something tiny and frantic skitters like a dormouse behind Sherlock’s glazed eyes and makes Mycroft grip his umbrella tighter as he steps forward.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Sherlock says at exactly the same time as Mycroft’s, “What’s in the cup?”  
  
Sherlock frowns and doesn’t answer. Mycroft takes another step forward and delicately sniffs. He doesn’t say anything, either. There are times when one needs to keep one’s mouth shut, lest it declare independency from one’s brain.  
  
“Mycroft,” Sherlock says with a warning. Now that Mycroft can hear him without his own voice polluting Sherlock’s, the grip on his umbrella tightens even more.  
  
“What’s in the cup, Sherlock?” Mycroft repeats quietly. He needs to find a crack immediately, while Sherlock’s guard is still down from the surprise.  
  
Sherlock swallows with difficulty and his features twist involuntarily.  
  
“Soup.” His response is equally quiet.  
  
Mycroft looks at the tip of his umbrella and nods.  
  
“The same soup that is responsible for the red mark on your right hand and the damp stain on your t-shirt?”  
  
The dormouse makes another panicky appearance.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Sherlock presses, tonsils thick in his voice.  
  
Mycroft puffs air into his cheeks. He really shouldn’t. It makes him look even more the pig, but at the moment he physically needs to relieve the emotion. He blows out slowly, relishing the control over how much carbon dioxide he is expelling from his lungs. Control. Right.  
  
“I wanted to see you,” he says. Normally, he wouldn’t give Sherlock the real state of affairs but the press package instead: how mother worried that Sherlock hadn’t called, how someone from the college wrote to suggest a meeting with Sherlock’s tutors. But not today. There’s already so much to be done today; Mycroft’s energy can’t be wasted on politics.  
  
And Sherlock needs to hear this blatant confession in order to obey the next request with as little resistance as possible.  
  
“Let’s go,” Mycroft says and steps towards him, the movement tearing him to pieces in its inability to be followed by a crushing hug. He can’t scare Sherlock; he mustn’t.  
  
Sherlock opens his mouth, but doesn’t speak. He locks Mycroft’s gaze as Mycroft takes another step closer until they finally stand just several inches away, neither letting go of the other’s eyes. From here Mycroft can confirm his deductions about how long exactly Sherlock has been sick, how much weight he has lost, when his last shower was, when he changed into this top…The rest is perception very removed from the precise nature of deduction. Such as how inadequate Sherlock’s attempts to take care of himself have been or how no one has taken care of him, either.  
  
Then there’s the matter of the soup. Mycroft puts that one away, separately, for later.  
  
He remembers how the last time they were…together he wished someone would hurt Sherlock so that Mycroft had an outlet for his intense feelings. Well. Here’s the final proof that a person’s intellectual prowess has nothing to do with their emotional intelligence. How could it have possibly occurred to him, in any state that he might have been— How could he have _ever_ thought that Sherlock in someone’s malicious, ignorant, spiteful hands would bring Mycroft anything remotely—  
  
Mycroft’s an idiot beyond any excuse.  
  
“Please, Sherlock.” He pleads evenly.  
  
But he doesn’t have to. Sherlock’s already looking around the room.  
  
“You don’t need anything,” Mycroft says. “If you do, I’ll send someone to collect it. Let’s go now. Please.”  
  
Sherlock looks at him again, the hollows where his shoulders join his chest pronounced even under the camouflage of his loosely hanging long-sleeved top. Up close the toll of his unfortunate soup trip is written all over him. He is weak and has retreated so far into himself that only the suddenness of Mycroft’s appearance provides Mycroft with access. Mycroft abruptly reaches out and Sherlock’s eyes widen unconsciously in alarm. Mycroft carefully extracts the cup from Sherlock’s hand and slides it with the opposite amount of care along the nearest surface.  
  
He cherishes his victory for the expedience it provides, but beyond that he has rarely regretted having his way so much as he does when Sherlock turns on his heels and obediently leaves the room without a word.  
  
***  
  
Mycroft is grateful for the silences of people today: Sherlock doesn’t speak, Nick doesn’t speak, the man at reception doesn’t speak. Well, Nick and the receptionist don’t say more than what’s strictly necessary. There’s so much talk already in Mycroft’s life and he’s not even thirty. He sometimes wonders whether in five years’ time he won’t already feel so cluttered with words that a quiet job as an auditor wouldn’t become preferable.  
  
Nick knows when to keep himself to himself, of course. There is a reason why he is the one driving Mycroft on this particular trip. Patrick, the receptionist, would be where he is for a reason, too. He’s at the desk of one of the most discreet establishments on Mycroft’s books. It’s a boutique hotel, but not the kind you find on the internet.  
  
Sherlock’s silence is disturbing but also understandable. The combination of being sick and being compliant must be clogging his mental circuits. He still doesn’t say a word as they walk into their joining rooms. Mycroft closes the door quietly, then turns and casts Sherlock a quick, assessing look.  
  
Sherlock is standing by the French windows, looking out—a gut-wrenching figure of discrepancies in these luxurious surroundings. Mycroft has better things to do than let his gut be wrenched, though. For one thing, Nick is waiting for instructions. So is Patrick at reception, judging by his keen gaze of understanding—Mycroft hopes limited understanding—as he said, “Anything you need, Sir, just call.” Besides, a bit like with the precaution of keeping his mouth shut lest it declared independence, Mycroft’s gut can’t be allowed to wallow in the sight that is Sherlock.  
  
He goes to the bathroom and washes his hands, pats them half-dry with a perfectly soft hand towel, and carefully presses them to his face, revelling at the residual cool dampness. Then he straightens his tie in the mirror and returns to the room.  
  
“I’ll be back in a minute.” He addresses his brother’s back and steps out to make arrangements.  
  
When he comes back, Sherlock is still by the window. He seems frozen. Mycroft wants to melt him. The surge is a welcome one because it prompts him to practicality. He takes a few steps in Sherlock’s direction—the door to the bathroom is that way.  
  
“I’ll run you a bath,” he says.  
  
Sherlock’s shoulders start—it’s not clear whether because he was so far gone he’d forgotten Mycroft was there or because the thick carpet muffled Mycroft’s steps. He still doesn’t turn around and Mycroft can’t see his face.  
  
Maybe it was the mention of the bath. They haven’t done this in years. At first, because Sherlock stopped being a little boy. Then because he transformed into a young man, the nearness of whom Mycroft had to watch more painstakingly than he did his own diet. There were also other people around, always.  
  
But not here. Mycroft suddenly realizes this is the first time since they—this is the first time in a couple of years that he and Sherlock have been completely alone. It figures it would also be the time when the last thing he’d like to do with his brother is take a carnal advantage of their solitude.  
  
There is a soft knock on the door. Mycroft opens it to find a very petite young woman with a small trolley. On the bottom tray there is china, crockery, and cutlery. On the top tray there’s food. A variety of fruits, a couple of fresh croissants, some cheese, butter, two tiny jars: one with peach marmalade, one with strawberry jam. Good, they had peach. Mycroft thanks the girl, who evaporates as soon as the wheels of the trolley stop.  
  
“Have a piece of fruit and a bite from the croissant,” he says to Sherlock’s back. Sherlock shifts from one foot to the other, then suddenly breaks into a series of wheezing coughs, hand shooting to cover his mouth. When he stops, he stills almost guiltily. Mycroft swallows hard.  
  
“Just a bite, that’s all,” he murmurs, “and maybe half a banana. I’ll call you when your bath’s ready.”  
  
He knows the best chance for Sherlock to eat anything is if the room is empty. A comparison to a scared animal presents itself; it isn’t entirely unfounded, but it is entirely unwanted in its maudlin sentiment. Mycroft makes sure he steps heavily across the room as he heads to the bathroom, shrugging off his jacket and throwing it on an armchair in passing.  
  
Once inside the bathroom he roughly folds the sleeves of his shirt, enjoying the scandalized little gasp his prim side makes at the unprecedented gesture. But if Sherlock is temporarily unavailable to spar with him, Mycroft must step in and rattle himself.  
  
He runs the water and adjusts its temperature to just below too hot, then sniffs suspiciously some of the small bottles he finds, until he chooses the Molton Brown Black Pepper shower and bath gel. He empties it under the running water, then stands by the bath, watching the bubbles multiply steadily and breathing in the warm, smokey scent that immediately begins to fill the air.  
  
When everything is ready, he peers out the bathroom door and his eyes meet Sherlock’s. Sherlock is again by the window, this time facing the room. There is a tiny croissant flake on his chin.  
  
Mycroft feels his own face move and it takes him a second to realize he is smiling at his brother all the way to his eyes.  
  
"Your bath is ready," he says.

 

***

  
The air in the bathroom has just enough steam to take away the sharp edge of the scissors that have been snipping inside Mycroft’s chest from the moment he saw Sherlock walk in with his soup. He squints at his brother’s lush profile. Such abundance. Starting with the single curl over the forehead, representing the rich mop, then moving to what could conceivably be the very epitome of abundance—Sherlock’s mouth—and ending with the gorgeous, round chin. Sherlock is soaking in the bath, oblivious to Mycroft’s sponging gaze. His head is propped on a folded towel and his eyes are closed. His face is covered with tiny droplets—he is sweating, good! Mycroft feels pleased, as if he’s single-handedly discovered penicillin.  
  
He continues to run his fingers through Sherlock’s wet curls.  
  
This is the second bath. The first was purposeful and happened in a bit of a blur. One moment Sherlock was clothed, the next he was naked and entering the bath, hip bones jutting more dramatically as his abdomen hollowed at the first contact with the hot water. Mycroft didn’t even ask for permission to bathe him. He went on with it, investing all his suppressed, fierce feelings into his gestures. His hands were spreading the lather and working in the shampoo as if these were some sacred rituals. Fittingly, Sherlock bared his throat as he tilted his head back, waiting for his hair to be rinsed. Mycroft massaged his scalp and made a mental note to ask for some massage oils—the hotel offers its guests a masseur’s services, but Mycroft needs just the oils, thanks.  
  
The entire time, his attention has been all over the place. Part of him is trying to anticipate, to live in the future. Things are being bought for both of them, provisions, as if they were islanders to be separated from the world for days on end. Mycroft remembers himself at twelve, thirteen perhaps, putting a few chairs together and throwing a blanket over them, then having a delighted little Sherlock crawl in and out from under the roof of this make-believe hut. He remembers placing clues around the room, revealing vital information about their survival on the “island”, and having Sherlock explore and return to report his findings.  
  
The advantage of being a grown-up is that you can pay for a big deluxe hotel suite to be your hut, although it’s not half as charming. The advantage of adjoining rooms is that you can close the door between the two worlds and order everything to be delivered in the second bedroom. When they come out of the bathroom Mycroft expects an entire range of clothing and garments in the respective sizes for two adult males to be waiting, freshly laundered and ironed. Together with ten white t-shirts for when Sherlock starts sweating properly, plus some medication, toiletries, and a few specific foods such as organic honey.  
  
The massage oil has just been added to the list, but Mycroft can’t blame himself for not thinking about it until now. Forgetting the pyjamas _was_ baffling, but Mycroft is the chief operator on a number of mental platforms, so he’s made some allowances for himself.  
  
The second platform is a mental list that’s already run a mile long and that contains all the arrangements to be made about work. It won’t be the first time he’s been out of office for a few days, but it will be the first time he simply won’t return, regardless of the gravity of the situation. Only an impending world war would have the power to insert itself as top priority at present. Since that risk is academic, Mycroft’s been busy planning how to turn this place into a temporary office. His absence from work doesn’t bother him too much; if anything, it will save him from having to go to meetings. He always did like moving as little as possible.  
  
The third platform is the here and now of what he’s doing. The gathering of Sherlock’s rumpled clothes and their careful placement away, for Mycroft’s eyes only; the arranging of the predictably thick, fluffy towels and the bathrobe on the hook at the back of the bathroom door, at the ready; the draining of the first water out of the bath and the constant steady run of the shower over Sherlock’s naked body to keep it warm, while the tub quickly filled with water for the second soak, scented and full of bubbles to the point of making Sherlock lift an eyebrow.  
  
The fourth platform, on which Mycroft operates in a dreamlike state, is appropriately in the realm of the subliminal. There are no names to experiences there, no labels to explain them. Memories of the last time he and Sherlock were together collide randomly with the fresh memories of Sherlock standing at the door of his room. Attempts to explain why, _why_ Mycroft waited so long before coming to see Sherlock bounce off each other, cancelling each other out. Images of Sherlock as a three-year old carefully tiptoe around those of him shaking with desire in Mycroft’s arms at Christmas.  
  
For safety, Mycroft stays away from the pugnacious mess of feelings for the moment, instead keeping close to simple sensations: touching Sherlock’s thin, light stubble; watching Sherlock’s lips part as breathing through his nose becomes harder; sampling the bland taste of water on Sherlock’s temple.  
  
The second soak is a short one. Hopefully, there’ll be more time for longer baths of indulgence, but right now Sherlock has to be in bed. Mycroft helps him dry himself thoroughly, frisking the towel over his skin to bring its bashful pink to crimson brightness. He packs Sherlock into the robe and sits him on the closed lid of the loo, then shaves him with speed so out of character that Sherlock would never have missed commenting on it had he been well. Finally they blow-dry Sherlock’s hair; Sherlock’s neck becomes rubber under the gentle guidance of Mycroft’s fingers.  
  
Once they’re back in the room Mycroft sits along the bed with his legs spread open and beckons Sherlock to sit between them. He is rather unprepared for Sherlock’s stroppy voice; it makes him giddy with relief.  
  
“I know you’ve got enough padding to make you a suitable replacement for the cushions, Mycroft,” Sherlock rumbles, “but don’t you think I’m a little too old for this?”  
  
“The childishness of that remark is your answer,” Mycroft replies. “Sit.”  
  
Sherlock scowls but settles between Mycroft’s legs. He hesitates before sinking back, aided by Mycroft’s hands wrapping around him.  
  
They stay quiet for a few moments. Mycroft is reluctant to move, but worries Sherlock might doze off. He wanted to feed him first, yet the need to hold him took precedent and scrambled the neat order of his priorities. The soup issue is pressing, too, like a thorn that’s buried itself under Mycroft’s skin.  
  
They both know Mycroft knows. It’s as if Mycroft had been there. The time it took for Sherlock to come back meant at least one incident. Mycroft would guess someone, another student, was involved. And he—  
  
Or they? The very idea of a possible plural makes Mycroft see red.  
  
A person or persons unknown (yet!) taunted Sherlock and didn’t let him get to the kettle, delaying him. Perhaps they poured the boiled kettle into a sink and made Sherlock wait for a second kettle to boil? Perhaps they simply obstructed his way to the kettle? Sherlock wouldn’t have pushed. He would have retreated and let them forget about him. He must have been tired already from his trip; he wouldn’t have had the energy to argue. Mycroft can imagine him, sliding to a near-by chair or the wall, already dizzy, and yet still being made to wait...  
  
Not red. Mycroft sees purple, bright and ugly like a bruise.  
  
Then there are the stains and the light burn on Sherlock’s hand. That one is clear: Someone “accidentally” knocked the full cup of piping hot soup in Sherlock’s hand. Mycroft’s already treated the burn. If Sherlock had any doubt that his brother had worked it all out, this would have been where he lost it.  
  
Mycroft finds it difficult to breathe; Sherlock’s weight is oppressive against his ribcage.  
  
“Where did you get the soup from?” he asks.  
  
He can visualize Sherlock’s eyes flying open. Oh, Mycroft does regret having to do that now, but he was close to suffocating. With luck, it’ll be over in a minute.  
  
“A girl,” Sherlock answers, likely able to foresee how fruitless resistance would be.  
  
Mycroft in turn can foresee great fortunes in that female person’s life in the very near future.  
  
“Hmm?” He prompts.  
  
Sherlock’s sigh is very loud—he’s clearly trying to compensate for being deprived of showing Mycroft the roll of his eyes. “I was going to make tea,” he mumbles, “but then when they—”  
  
He halts; he must be cursing himself silently for slipping so soon. Mycroft doesn’t want to think how much his choice to address the issue now was because he accounted for Sherlock’s weakened mental state.  
  
Evidently Sherlock wants to get this over with quickly, too. “She came into the galley and saw me and…she made the soup,” he says, voice uselessly trying to convey matter-of-factness.  
  
Mycroft squeezes his arm once. That’s all he needs. He can reconstruct the entire scene almost to the last detail now. The girl must have just left the main room. She was in the galley because of some commotion, louder voices; Sherlock would have been quiet, so more than one person. She didn’t just _see_ Sherlock. She saw that he was unwell and saw the others bullying him; likely told them off. Then told him to wait while she popped quickly back to her room for the soup sachet—that would account for an extra minute or two of his delay—before boiling the kettle for Sherlock and making the soup. Naively, she left him alone afterwards. When the “accidental” spill occurred.  
  
Mycroft is lucky, really. With a witness it will be so much easier to find out who they were. Sherlock will be sleeping soon, hopefully for hours—ample time to indulge in some rather dark fantasies, act as an anonymous benefactor to the only deserving party in the story, and sort this entire matter out.  
  
“Stay out of it, Mycroft.” Half of Sherlock’s consonants are dulled by his blocked nose.  
  
“Yes, Sherlock, that is very much what I would do.”  
  
Sherlock tries to wriggle in his arms and Mycroft lets him, to be faced with a feebly argumentative expression.  
  
“All I can promise,” Mycroft says, “is that they won’t be told it’s connected to you.” He doesn’t add what a sacrifice that is on his part.  
  
“Must you poke your long nose everywhere?” Sherlock asks, sounding even more congested now that his larynx has twisted. “What’s with the sudden interest in my affairs after _four months_?”  
  
Mycroft bites his cheeks from the inside and keeps them bitten. Sherlock turns a bit more and casts him a slanted look. He reads his victory on Mycroft’s remorseful face and predictably doesn’t seem half-victorious. _He is so young,_ Mycroft thinks. _He still thinks every victory is sweet and every loss—bitter_.  
  
Mycroft shuffles to get up and is met with an anxious flash in Sherlock’s eyes.  
  
“I’m just going to bring you some food,” Mycroft says and thinks that under different circumstances he wouldn’t have hurried to reassure Sherlock—or reassure him at all. In this surreal world of stripped down defences and cocooned solitude the perspective is clear and too harsh to contemplate. It’s staggering how much—how _casually_ they hurt each other as the norm.  
  
He comes back to the bed with a small load on a big plate. Sherlock immediately accepts his return as cushion substitute and in the next fifteen minutes Mycroft literally feeds him: bites of croissant with butter and marmalade, a small banana, occasionally dipped in clear honey, a cup of Earl Grey with lemon. Mycroft finds himself talking about the import of tea these days, then moves to tea rituals in the middle ages, and then to life on the tea clippers in the olden days. It doesn’t take much to spot the connection to the olden days of their childhood, if nothing else than for the way Mycroft served as a walking encyclopaedia to Sherlock’s ravenous little head back then. He’s talking about the tea clippers somewhat on purpose. It’s the closest to a pirate’s tale Mycroft can produce with some saving grace; anything else would be pure infantile regression.  
  
Sherlock eats and drinks and asks a couple of short questions. His voice is slurred with exhaustion and with the effects of the medication. He is on the mend now; the cold’s peak must have passed a day or two ago and Sherlock’s state is mostly due to haphazard, extremely insufficient care. And how was he supposed to take care of himself if he could barely come out of bed? He must have run his usual high temperature—Sherlock’s colds have always been vicious once they catch him. Mycroft postpones lynching himself for later in favour of moving to the other end of the bed where he takes Sherlock’s feet in his lap and begins rubbing them with the warming oil. Sherlock raises both of his eyebrows this time but Mycroft ignores him. There are soon a few spots from the oil on Mycroft’s trousers, looking like small countries on a vast textile map.  
  
Sherlock is struggling to keep his eyes open, but he still watches Mycroft, eyelashes heavy with his dazed effort at being Sherlock. Mycroft glides his knuckles and fingers all over the arch of Sherlock’s foot and Sherlock shuffles lower, pushes his foot against Mycroft’s touch. Mycroft increases the pressure and observes his brother’s mouth slacking, as his eyelids begin to droop in earnest. In a moment Sherlock brushes his fringe away from his dampening forehead, sniffs, then puts his arms around himself. Unthinking, Mycroft lifts Sherlock’s foot and places his lips on the tender skin of the high arch. Sherlock’s eyes open wide, before fluttering shut and remaining so. Mycroft keeps kissing and massaging, the lump in his throat melting with each movement of his mouth.  
  
When he finishes with the left foot he puts it into a woollen sock and proceeds with the right. Once both feet are socked, Sherlock lifts himself up on his elbows. Wordlessly, Mycroft returns to his previous place behind him and Sherlock drops back before Mycroft has even settled. He burrows himself into his own gown and turns to one side, pushing his nose into the thin crevice between Mycroft’s arm and his body. Mycroft doesn’t care that half the ointment Sherlock has dabbed over his sore nostrils is being smeared onto his shirt. He pulls the blanket he’s had at the ready and covers their legs, then very carefully puts his right hand into Sherlock’s hair. He begins carding and focuses on evening out his breathing. Sherlock drops off in less than a minute.  
  
***  
  
For the next thirty-six hours Sherlock mostly sleeps, eats, and drinks. As the hours of sleep grow shorter, his sentences grow longer. True, nothing to write home about but then again Mycroft wouldn’t even dream of writing home about most of the things Sherlock says to him in private.  
  
His brother is getting better.  
  
Mycroft has made sure of that just as he’s made sure that everyone in this bitter-sour story gets what they deserve. Well, a young man by the name of Stephen Portley-Jones still has three hours left before his little world of prerogatives and ridiculously inadequate sense of importance undergoes a life-changing quake thanks to something as sordid as a couple of photographs in the papers. Mycroft doesn’t care the incident will affect not just Mr Portley-Jones but the members of his entire family as well. He is utterly unmoved that his actions are about to produce a thick, muddy stain on three hundred-fifty years of noble family history. _Noblesse oblige_ , Mycroft thinks. They should have brought up their offspring better. For instance, to have some manners around sick people or to be more mindful of gestures when said people carry hot liquids in cups.  
  
Mycroft takes it as his pale reward that the wrath of the entire mighty clan will befall young Master Stephen—for he has made sure Mummy and Daddy know very well their son was the cause of this…unpleasantness. Since by Sherlock’s explicit request Mycroft’s wrath has been denied a personal audience with Stephen Portley-Jones, then Mycroft has had to make other arrangements.  
  
Sherlock was asleep both of the times Mycroft went out. He was still sleeping when Mycroft returned. It doesn’t mean he didn’t figure out exactly where Mycroft was or what he was up to.  
  
“I can’t go back there now,” Sherlock tells him apropos of nothing, hours after Mycroft’s second return.  
  
“On the contrary,” is Mycroft’s only reply. Sherlock doesn’t press and has some soup, then goes back to bed. This is one of the four full sentences he says for the entire first day.  
  
He wakes up again around nine in the evening, eyes puffy but their white already beginning to strive for the white of Mycroft’s shirt. Mycroft is sitting along his own side of the bed, watching a TV documentary about Neo-Romanticism in Literature with the volume turned down to three. Without averting his eyes from the screen he knows Sherlock’s awake. He can feel Sherlock’s gaze travelling over his reclining body. He wonders what Sherlock thinks about his appearance. No, he corrects himself in a hurry—not what Sherlock thinks about Mycroft appearance, God no. What Sherlock _deduces_ from, _from_ the scene. Mycroft is wearing only his shirt and suit trousers; feet bare, crossed; a half-empty cup of tea in the lap; slight slouch; Neo-Romanticism.  
  
Sherlock’s right foot protrudes from under the covers and his toe drags against Mycroft’s ankle where the skin is the thinnest.  
  
Mycroft turns to look down at his brother.  
  
Only a shock of hair, Sherlock’s eyebrows, and one eye are visible from under the duvet. Sherlock stares like babies do, but there is also some fragile maturity in his eyes. Mycroft reaches and gently pulls down the covers to reveal Sherlock’s slightly parted lips.  
  
Mycroft tilts his head and waits.  
  
“I want thin mints,” Sherlock says in a beat and pulls the covers back up. His foot doesn’t move from its point of contact with Mycroft’s.  
  
Mycroft returns his gaze to the TV. Sherlock goes on to watch him for another ten seconds and then falls back to sleep.

 

***

  
The real inhaling of food begins the following morning. Throughout the day they have more and more short conversations and Mycroft also manages to catch up on more or less all of his paperwork.  
  
On the third day normality is mostly resumed in that Sherlock breathes well, eats and drinks for England, and talks regularly, opposing half the things Mycroft “makes” him do. Entertainment is demanded from Mycroft through various forms of non-verbal communication as well as a set of messages along the lines of “Hotel rooms are a missing circle of hell. A hotel room with a tedious clerk of a brother is hell itself.”  
  
Mycroft does provide entertainment. He has some rare formulas of chemical reactions and some crosswords at the ready and he talks to Sherlock. Sherlock complains that he’s still bored but Mycroft doesn’t miss the extra time his brother needs to complete any mental task. Sherlock’s returning to himself not just from his short-term sick leave. His journey is from a much more oblique, distant retreat.  
  
He holds Sherlock a lot; their physical contact is constant and excessive, the only boundary that of whether Sherlock’s uncomfortable. In his sleep Sherlock hogs Mycroft, then kicks him away when he feels too hot, then nuzzles against any patch of Mycroft’s skin that is the closest, seeking a cuddle like an insistent dog. When awake, a part of him is instantly attaching itself to Mycroft as soon as Mycroft is within reach, even if it’s a bony calf across Mycroft’s fuller one.  
  
Sherlock’s blatant neediness reflects Mycroft’s rather adequately. Mycroft wonders whether they haven’t created a mystical realm for the two of them where there are no words but only actions, asseverating the accumulated demands of their greedy hearts. He is certain the realm exists only within the confines of their room, but it turns out that he is wrong.  
  
***  
  
Sherlock goes out for the first time in three days. He and Mycroft take a stroll through town and then along the river—the weather is glorious with just a nip in the air, but Mycroft knows that’s the way Sherlock likes it. It isn’t just restlessness that prompts them both to seek the outdoors; fresh air is the final ingredient that will seal Sherlock’s complete recovery.  
  
Mycroft prepares for his brother to avoid any physical contact with him in public and is surprised to find Sherlock continuously bumping and walking into him with utterly uncharacteristic clumsiness. At first, habit kicks in and Mycroft doesn’t read anything into these incidents—it’s vain and dangerous to think them a ruse of Sherlock’s to be close. The bright sun and the open space must have affected Sherlock’s sense of coordination. But then they sit on a bench by the water—moving down to the grass after Sherlock sulks insistently for three minutes—and there is no mistaking the deliberation of Sherlock’s choice to brush the side of his hand against Mycroft’s. In a moment he covers Mycroft’s little finger with his own.  
  
They spend only five minutes on the grass. Mycroft has chosen a completely dry patch and one that’s been warmed by the sun for hours at a time, but nonetheless he is afraid the April ground will suck in his brother’s fragile warmth of well-being. While stretched on the ground Sherlock doesn’t speak. He only squints at the glinting water and watches ducks and geese go about their business. Mycroft finds it significant that Sherlock is ignoring the small but varied human population—students, their visitors, tourists—in favour of watching the semi-wild life. Mycroft just isn’t sure _what_ this signifies.  
  
Some alarm flickers across Sherlock’s features when a very bold goose determinately marches towards them and comes within a hand’s reach, then even closer. It circles them, curious, and stretches its long neck examining them.  
  
“They’ve always been very tame,” Mycroft says. Sherlock doesn’t reply and doesn’t shoo the goose, either. He drops back to rest on his elbows and lifts his face to the sky, eyes closed. The breeze plays with his curls. Mycroft’s heart swells to the size of his head.  
  
In a few minutes he gets up reluctantly. “Let’s go along the river for a stroll,” he says.  
  
Half-way through the walk Sherlock asks, “Why are there so many people here and not in the town, and on a weekday?”  
  
Mycroft opens his mouth to correct him that it’s relatively empty, especially for such a beautiful day, when the implications of such a naïve question freeze his tongue.  
  
Sherlock turns to check the cause for his brother’s silence. His eyes darken when they fall on Mycroft’s face and he lightly frowns, then worries his bottom lip with his teeth. Mycroft takes a second to enjoy the rare sight of a genuinely perplexed Sherlock.  
  
“This is how it is here,” Mycroft says at last. “In fact, it’s usually busier. It’s one of Oxford’s most prominent features, this _promenade_ along the river.” He doesn’t know why he’s chosen the French word for a walk. He rarely uses their grand-mother’s language and when he does, it is often when he’s cruel. Now he’s being kind.  
  
The depressing thought of Sherlock living in Oxford for half a year and not once coming here has an evil twin—the rhetorical question of just whom he would come here with. Mycroft turns to glance at his brother’s profile to find him looking serious but not particularly perturbed. _Is unhappiness still unhappiness if you’re not quite aware of it?_ Mycroft wonders philosophically, but then Sherlock’s face chases away any abstract thought.  
  
His cheeks have bloomed with colour from the sun and the exertion. He’s wearing jeans, a light-blue shirt, a dark blue blazer, and a scarf in stripes—the last item only thanks to Mycroft’s insistence. The scarf has loosened and a stretch of pale, healthy-looking skin is visible. Mycroft stops and so does Sherlock, without a question. He lets Mycroft insinuate a couple of digits under the scarf to check for dampness. The bob of his Adam’s apple makes Mycroft’s fingers float; gentle ripples from Sherlock’s quickened pulse follow.  
  
Their eyes meet.  
  
“Shall we start walking back?” Mycroft asks in a moment.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
***  
  
When they return to the room, the sunset filtering through the delicate net curtains makes the edges of all objects appear hazel. Despite its supreme powers, Mycroft’s brain is in many respects that of an accountant, so this plunge into a world of soft lighting and blurred contours startles him and makes him seek an explanation as to how his own perceptions might be affected.  
  
He doesn’t need to seek long. The explanation has walked into the room one step ahead of him and now turns to face him.  
  
Mycroft has tried to abstain from the very idea of touching Sherlock intimately. It wasn’t hard at first; concern and care eclipsed all else with ease. But Sherlock’s health has been returning and so has Mycroft’s need, in proportion. Still, he hasn’t really thought about…He hasn’t really thought about anything beyond getting his brother well. Some repression must have taken place, for Mycroft now finds himself suddenly palpitating with an outbreak of desire. His eyes declare mutiny and soar from somewhere near Sherlock’s chin directly to his exquisite upper lip. For a split second Mycroft drowns in the depth of want he feels, then the revolution is quashed—he can’t _possibly_ pounce on his brother, not when Sherlock is under his care.  
  
Guardedly, Mycroft lets himself meet Sherlock’s eyes and his heart leaps in his throat again, when he’s pinned under the force of two large, dilated pupils. They stare at each other. Sherlock takes a sudden breath through his nose.  
  
“I need a bath,” he says. “Draw me a bath.”  
  
Mycroft’s long past lecturing about the form to uphold when making demands. He nods, goes around Sherlock and to the bathroom.  
  
Forty minutes later he is sitting at the desk by the window reading the intelligence on the Savoy meeting. He’s been deducing Sherlock’s actions behind the closed bathroom door since the moment Sherlock disappeared there, so when the door opens Mycroft anticipates it all: the whiff of tempting scent, the small puff of steam, the white silhouette his peripheral vision catches on his left-hand side. Mycroft’s eyes remain on the document while in his head he follows Sherlock’s movement across the short space from the bathroom to the desk. When the white figure looms over him, Mycroft tilts his head to look down at its feet. They’re bare; of course they’re bare. Mutely, Mycroft averts his eyes to the slippers by the bed. Sherlock doesn’t move.  
  
Staring right ahead Mycroft schools his features to show an exaggerated prayer to the gods. “Put your slippers on.”  
  
The scowl is audible in Sherlock’s voice. “What for? They’ve cleaned the room and my feet are warm.”  
  
“Two days ago your lymph nodes were still swollen.”  
  
“They’re not now.”  
  
“Sherlock!”  
  
Mycroft casts a stern look at Sherlock to find him lifting his own eyes to the ceiling, face skittish and endearing in its failure at being quite the adult’s. He drags his feet to the bed, shoves them into the slippers, and immediately returns to his previous position. One end of his bathrobe belt is sticking out a bit, almost brushing Mycroft’s bicep.  
  
Mycroft has gone back to looking down at the paper in front of him but he knows reading is over. Sherlock does, too. He just stands next to him, silent and immobile, his proximity wearing down Mycroft’s composure like a Swiss Army knife sharpening a pencil. Ten more seconds and the quiet in the room is thundering in Mycroft’s ears. He turns in his seat and looks up Sherlock squarely in the face.  
  
Sherlock’s mouth is dark coral from his soak in the hot bath. His eyes, on the other hand, appear extraordinarily pale from this angle. They lock Mycroft’s and the irises’ colour continues to dissolve rapidly as if Mycroft’s gaze is sucking it in.  
  
How long they stay like that Mycroft cannot say, but he experiences the surreal impression that a giant invisible rubber is erasing all their surroundings. Lines, colours, and matter disappear around them and with that Sherlock’s presence becomes heavier and heavier. Mycroft feels his nostrils open wide with his next breath, yet his lungs begin to collapse.  
  
In a fast, nimble movement Sherlock undoes the belt of his robe to have it fall open right in front of Mycroft’s face.  
  
Three seconds later that same face is pressing against Sherlock’s crotch, rubbing along the abdomen, dragging a slack, wet mouth against muscle and flesh. Mycroft’s hands have dived under the robe and are holding onto Sherlock’s hips for dear life, arresting, while he blindly latches onto Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock’s hands are still hanging by his sides but his hips and waist bend like a willow into Mycroft’s touch. Mycroft lifts his eyes, right side glued against Sherlock’s navel, and finds that Sherlock is looking down at him with heavy-lidded, pleading eyes. He is breathing through his open mouth once again. Mycroft gapes, too, for air, for mercy, then slides lower and takes Sherlock in his mouth.  
  
Time drifts off as Mycroft moans and salivates, on and on, insatiable. The smell of Sherlock’s arousal, the sound of his keening breaths, the feel of the glacier smooth head of his penis against Mycroft’s tender palate obliterate all sense of place. Mycroft only becomes aware of his surroundings again when Sherlock’s hips come alive under his hands, trying to extract themselves, and Mycroft realizes he’s been pressing his fingers so hard into them that he must have caused Sherlock pain.  
  
He lets go immediately, hands flying up and away from Sherlock’s body, making Mycroft look like a poor impersonator of a bird. He swivels in his chair and in one and the same motion manoeuvres Sherlock a step back to sit him on the bed and drops on his own knees, burying his face in his lap again.  
  
Sherlock props himself on his palms; during one of his eyes’ momentary openings Mycroft notices Sherlock’s wrists turn white with the pressure baring down on his hands. Mycroft’s own hands are circling Sherlock’s lower back, holding, still holding. He keeps licking and sucking, rarely letting Sherlock out of his mouth and when he does, it’s only to find him a moment later, engulf him again. He gets a series of heady snapshots as his eyelids tremble and open with his humming: Sherlock’s flushed chest, the doodle of a vein on his right upper arm, the round tips of his teeth against the pleasured pout of his bottom lip.  
  
Then another image appears, a mental one—the perspective of someone watching from the outside. A stranger walking in, seeing Mycroft on his knees between Sherlock’s legs, shirt sleeves twisted around his wrists, hair a mess from Sherlock’s now active fingers, head bobbing eagerly up and down as he fellates his brother like the world’s coming to an end.  
  
Sherlock’s sudden groan startles him. Sherlock takes himself in hand and pulls out of Mycroft’s mouth; with the drag, Mycroft’s tongue distinguishes the taste of pre-ejaculation and Sherlock’s actions become understandable. Then they become obvious as Sherlock drops on his back, lifts his legs up and spreads them open. Mycroft stares at Sherlock’s turned, embarrassed, eloquent face for a moment, then dives back down to take care of what’s asked from him. To take care.  
  
***  
  
 _In_ Sherlock. The indescribable. Mycroft freezes above his brother, holding his face between his hands. Sherlock blinks at him, panting and trembling, dazed with abandon, but then his eyes slowly begin to focus until he stills, too, watches Mycroft back with frightening familiarity. The impossible: looking at a mirror of yourself, yet finding someone so finitely separate from you that his very existence overwhelms you. The indescribable: being one with yourself and him.  
  
Mycroft’s air whistles through his nostrils as he buries his face in the crook of Sherlock’s neck and starts thrusting in again, frantic and desperate. Beneath him Sherlock throws his arms up above his head and arches, throat baring and tearing into a loud moan.  
  
***  
  
Sherlock isn’t sleeping. Mycroft knows it, despite the fact that he can’t feel any movement from the left side of Sherlock’s face, currently pressed against Mycroft’s chest. Nature has bestowed plenty of dark hair with a hint of ginger to cover Mycroft’s skin there—something he suspects Sherlock secretly likes, because in his rare, most sated, uninhibited moments he slides down and hugs Mycroft, face resting against the middle of his chest.  
  
Mycroft feels very drowsy but he needs to stay awake.  
  
“I don’t want to go back.” Sherlock’s voice is deep, quiet, and muffled.  
  
Definitely needs to stay awake.  
  
Mycroft doesn’t shift, just reinstates his loose hold around Sherlock.  
  
“You must, Sherlock.”  
  
Sherlock makes a move to pull away, but Mycroft slides his hand into the hair at the back of his head and pushes gently upward. The strands part against his fingers reluctantly but Mycroft is careful.  
  
He sighs. “What would be your prospects without education? You won’t find a nine-to-five job, will you? You must have some back-up that will allow you to—”  
  
“Dull.” Mycroft feels the exhale as the word is uttered, but persists, “—perhaps pursue an academic career, do some research—”  
  
“I _don’t want_ to go back.”  
  
Mycroft closes his mouth. His fingers have stopped in the curls but now resume their movement. He lightly scratches Sherlock’s scalp and Sherlock’s body, which has tensed, begins relaxing again. Sherlock’s right hand is still dead against Mycroft’s back, though.  
  
Mycroft’s eyes shut and he sighs again. He is an analyst. He puts data together and foresees outcomes, calculating in all the variables. That’s one of the things he does for a living; often that _is_ his life. He might be emotionally invested to the top of his head here, but his brain is formidable—it only makes re-adjustments to include those variables that can’t be quantified but would severely affect the end result. The future doesn’t reveal itself to Mycroft to its last detail but it does a pretty good job of giving him a general preview. Mycroft squeezes his eyes and his arms flex involuntarily, mimicking. Sherlock melts further into the tightening embrace.  
  
“Stay for another six months,” Mycroft murmurs. “If you still want to leave, we’ll talk then.”  
  
Sherlock’s fingers unfold against Mycroft’s back and warm his skin. Mycroft remembers a tiny fist holding his finger in an iron grip, then blissful darkness sweeps over him.


End file.
